


something good waitin' down this road

by havisham



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Bittersweet, Canon Compliant, Coda, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-08 19:23:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18629695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/pseuds/havisham
Summary: Steve, Bucky, Sam -- the gang's all here and they need to talk.Avengers Endgame Spoilers.





	something good waitin' down this road

Bucky hung back a little, to let Sam have a moment. There was a lot to take in, obviously, but already Sam was testing out the shield, reverentially, delightedly. It was, to be honest, a delight to see. Good decisions all around. 

Speaking of -- Bucky eyed Steve, curiously, and Steve looked back him. As far Bucky could recall, nothing much had changed since he’d seen Steve last -- on Bucky’s end. But he had learned well enough not to trust his own memories. Anything could’ve happened. And Steve could die right now, without telling them a thing. 

But -- no. Another look confirmed it. Yeah, Steve was -- fragile now, but he didn’t seem like he was going to expire right in front of them. 

So, in absence of any other world-ending situations, they decided to break for lunch. 

*

“I’m not going to ask you,” Sam said, as they were finishing up lunch. Banner had to leave for a book signing, but the other three had the rest of the afternoon for themselves. The restaurant they’d chosen for lunch was deserted, swept for bugs and besides the hum of the fridges, quiet.

Sam put down his spoon into his half-eaten banana pudding and said, “No. I mean, I want to ask, because this shit is crazy, but I understand if you don’t want to tell me. But okay, I’ll ask because he --” here he kicked Bucky under the table, which Bucky naturally retaliated with his own kick -- “Never will.”

Steve harrumphed and glanced upward for a moment, his brow wrinkled. Bucky had never met either of Steve’s grandfathers, or his father, for that matter, but he had no doubt Steve now resembled them. Strange.

That Steve was probably someone else’s grandfather now was too weird to think about. 

“It doesn’t matter how you did it -- I’m glad you did. You deserved a happy life, Steve.” Bucky meant that sincerely, and from Steve’s answering smile, he knew his friend agreed. 

“I had one,” Steve said. 

“And? Come on,” Sam said, “I’m not the only one who wants the full story, am I?” 

“Well. After putting the Stones back -- and getting into a lot of trouble because of it, you wouldn’t believe who the hell is on Vormir, well, you might, Buck, but I --” His voice cracked a little bit. “I went back to -- I think it was 1950 and I saw her again. I couldn’t leave this time, we had so much to say to each other.” 

“We’re happy you could make that choice, Cap,” Sam said. 

“He doesn’t speak for me, but yeah,” Bucky said. 

“She didn’t believe me at once -- threw Howard at me and I got prodded with a lot of needles and truth serums and asked things only I would know -- but in the end, it worked out. I told her everything. About you, about me, and especially about SHIELD and Zola and what it all turned into. We fixed it. And we were happy -- God, Buck, Sam, I wish I could’ve shared how happy we were, but --” 

“Fixed it, huh? Makes sense -- neither of you could leave well enough alone.” 

“No,” Steve said. “Of course not. We had to fix it. Get you back, and when they found me on the ice again, I wanted to help set it right. The life I had with Peggy -- with you, with Sam, and my other self. It was a different timeline. When Peggy died, I used my last bit of Pym Particles to come back here -- a week before I’d left. Nothing had changed from before. Peggy -- my kids, they weren’t mine in this timeline. HYDRA took over SHIELD. You suffered for seventy years. But --” 

“It’s different somewhere else,” Bucky said. “And that’s good.” 

“Yeah,” Steve agreed. “It mattered somewhere else.” 

“Well,” Sam said, standing up. He took up the shield and smiled despite himself. Bucky grinned back at him. His happiness was infectious. “I guess we’re going to have to break the news to everyone, huh?” 

“You think Banner hasn’t told them?” 

“Shit. He’s probably posted about it, yeah.” 

Steve took out a phone from his pocket and snorted. “I don’t look like Clint Eastwood.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title by Tom Petty.


End file.
